EVENTS

Depressing Times

The investigation into Trump’s crimes has done exactly what I was afraid it would: it has discovered that the entire upper level of the administration is part of the conspiracy.

Imagine an episode of Scooby Do where the mystery kids figure out that it’s the caretaker, wearing a rubber mask, scaring people away from an old building in order to drive property values down. Then, the cops show up, and they start saying “no you have the wrong guy.” But they go to the district attorney, who doesn’t disclose that he works with the caretaker, who argues that it makes more sense to prosecute the kids for trespassing. Naturally, they ask for help from the judge, but it turns out that the judge is the caretaker’s brother. Etc. We’re used to thinking in terms of “the game is rigged” but in this case the entire amusement park is rigged – it’s not an organized conspiracy (clearly!) but everyone involved is going to move in the same directions: 1) protect Trump because he is the source of money and power, 2) grab all the money that Trump is doling out.

Last night I stumbled across some fairly bland reportage that Trump has been wining and dining senators and offering them stays at Camp David. These are the jurymembers for a criminal case in which Trump is the defendant. They’re not going to recuse themselves because everyone else in the senate is also in on the scam, but that’s not how a courtroom drama is supposed to play out – Trump’s jury of his peers are his golfing buddies; do you think for a second that they are going to find the moral energy to throw Trump out of the golf club? It would ruin their future games. [wp]

So acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney pitched to him an unusual idea at the start of the House impeachment inquiry: Use the secluded mountainous presidential retreat to woo House Republicans.

Since then, Mulvaney and top White House officials have hosted weekend getaways for Republicans at the historic lodge, seeking to butter up Republicans before the big impeachment vote. The casual itinerary includes making s’mores over the campfire, going hiking, shooting clay pigeons and schmoozing with Trump officials, some of whom stay overnight with lawmakers.

During dinners, Trump has called in to compliment members personally.

“Too bad Jeffrey Epstein’s dead, he’d have fit right in with this bunch and maybe he’d have brought a little sumthin’ sumthin’ to share around and collect us some kompromat.”

The US is about to be treated to the impeachment process as though it’s a trial, and – ironically – the republicans are already calling it out as a “show trial.” They’re projecting, again. They’re right; they’re going to be the ring-masters.

It utterly blows my mind that Devin Nunes can sit as the ‘opposing member’ in the hearings about the Ukraine dirt-buying scandal, and completely not mention that he was part of it. He was one of the guys who helped figure out which Ukrainian oligarch was easiest to strong-arm. My bet is that next time the republicans pull this sort of move, they’ll use an actor. It would be so easy. Memo to Hunter Biden: don’t go waterskiing with Kid Rock where the water is deep and cold as ice. Why not? It’s nothing new: why do you think the Kennedy brothers were hanging out with Frank Sinatra, passing Marilyn Monroe around like a trophy? These power-fuckers have shown over and over again that you can lure them into the most ridiculous things if you dangle sex and privilege at them; after all, that’s what they are in politics for. That has implications: you cannot shame them; they’re just puzzled: they’re already standing in line for debasement and we’re telling them their fly is undone. “Yes, that is the point.”

The whole “Moscow Mitch” meme is an example of what happens when we fail to understand this. McConnell is not going to be shamed because he’s not helping protect American democracy. As a long-term gerrymanderer, vote suppressor, and influence buyer, calling him “Moscow Mitch” is offensive because he’s been doing that stuff all along because he wants to. He’s ahead of Moscow; they are amateurs. And you know that if you asked him, he’d say “this is how it’s always been done.” Which is true; it’s been corrupt from the beginning. If you read the history of the adoption of the constitution and the discussions and manipulations that swirled around that process, it’s hard to see Trump 69’ing with Fox and Friends as much different from Thomas Jefferson starting his own newspaper The National Gazette (which happened to be surprisingly pro-Jefferson). [wik]

It’s depressing to think that Trump is going to get away with crimes that would have shocked Richard Nixon into being envious. It didn’t take genius on Trump’s part – it took a partisan system that was ready to start turning everything into an all-or-nothing knife fight. If you’re a rational person who’s trying to live your life and get your swing on, and someone comes along, ready to fight to the death, you might give them too much while simultaneously letting them emplace their process of power and test how it works.

When Trump is exonerated by the senate, in the face of massive evidence and his confessions of guilt, I will declare the American Democracy “over.” What comes next will be something else.

In Marcus fantasy-land, the democrats would let the impeachment process run a bit long then say, “oh, by the way, all of this was about Biden. Biden has agreed to withdraw as a candidate because he’s going to be busy suing you. Warren has agreed to run, with Stacey Abrams as VP.”

The democrats have placed themselves in a position such that the Trumpian smear tactics are actually going to work. And look at them: now they have Michael Bloomberg stuck to the sole of their shoe like a urine-soaked $100 they stepped on in a bathroom and they can’t decide whether to shake it off or pick it up and put it into their wallet.

The status quo must be very comfortable for politicians, regardless of their party. If anything, they’d be able to be less subtle about their own little transgressions in the future. How nice. Plus, the impeachment may or may not change anything but is a wonderful opportunity to get some headlines and attention for everyone, and that’s bound to help with their next respective campaign. Normally those cost a lot of money, pledged by kind-hearted rich folk with spare cash, a strong belief in the good cause, and absolutely no expectation of quid or pro.

No doubt all you say is true, still, I get a grim satisfaction from knowing that at least some of these chuckle heads are in jail right now. Like Cohen and Manafort. I have the macabre hope that at least some of these new people will also go to jail, or at the very least be made to pay back all the money they stole from taxpayers to commit their crimes.

Yeah. I’ll probably “burn in hell for all eternity” for such thoughts but there it is: I think the guilty should be held accountable. And even though these people will not be held to the same standard that I would – they are such delicate snowflakes that the light sentences they will no doubt get probably hurts them ten times worse than it would me.

Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to make it out of this one. We’ve let things go too far and made too many major blunders–Ford’s pardon of Nixon, IMO, being the lynchpin–for this to be salvageable. There is going to be civil war, or an outside attack by a foreign power in a perceived moment of weakness, or both in either order.

I am going to try to leave the country as soon as possible, poor and damaged and traumatized though I am. If that involves stealing a boat and rowing across Lake Erie, so be it. The American Empire is crumbling fast.

The dems won’t do shit, they’re in this for exactly the same reasons. They just still feel a slight twinge of guilt.
Anyone who actually wants to reform this has been weeded out well before they reach this point

Re:American Democracy – I’m not sure if the US is any less democratic than other countries with elected governments. As long as votes can change the leadership and direction of government without coups or other illegal acts, it’s still democratic in the sense that most people use the term. That doesn’t make it good or healthy – you need more than democracy for that.

In regard to corruption, the US is in a relatively bad place now, largely because of the amount of money that has flowed into campaigns due to their spiraling costs, but corruption of one sort or another in politics has a long history not only in the US but, I would hazard a guess, in almost every other country as well, democratic or not.

Regarding Jefferson and his newspaper, you have to keep in mind that the whole concept of the news media as trying to be nonpartisan is a 20th century invention. Newspapers in the US, and some European countries as well, were flagrantly partisan in the 18th and 19th century, and openly subsidized by leading politicians and political parties. In a sense, the openly partisan journalism of today is going back to its roots.

I’m not sure if the US is any less democratic than other countries with elected governments.

Where I live, (1) gerrymandering does not exist; (2) elections are secure, with paper ballots, no voting machines with known security vulnerabilities; (3) every single citizen can vote, prison inmates can vote from inside the prisons, those people who don’t have a passport can easily obtain special voter cards for free, the special needs of voters with disabilities or health problems are accommodated, etc; (4) voters don’t have to choose between only two parties and two candidates both of whom endorse pretty much the same policies.

Of course, I’m highly critical about all the supposedly democratic countries and the flaws of representative democracies as such, but some countries are doing better than the USA.

What you have now is something else. How else could Trump, and all his shit have happened.
From what little I know, your electoral college is anti – democratic, so is all the gerrymandering and voter suppression/disenfranchisement that’s been going on,
Not to mention all the money in politics now. In a place like America with such a huge wealth disparity, allowing Unfettered contributions to politics becomes corrupt. All large contributors want something in return and they want it for themselves. The ordinary person can’t compete and is left out of the conversation. In a democracy everyone’s vote should carry the same weight.

Re:American Democracy – I’m not sure if the US is any less democratic than other countries with elected governments. As long as votes can change the leadership and direction of government without coups or other illegal acts, it’s still democratic in the sense that most people use the term.

Votes can change the leadership, but not the direction. They can slightly vary the speed of travel in that direction, but that’s about it.

On an old black and white British comedy show from the 60s whose name currently escapes me, there was a skit about explaining the differences between Britain and the US. On the topic of politics, it was said that “On the one hand, you have the Republicans, who are the equivalent of our Tory party, while on the other, you have the Democrats, who are… the equivalent of our Tory party”, and it’s only gotten worse since then. (Also bear in mind that the range of political opinion in Britain is rather narrower than is common in Europe.)

I always reminded of something Chomsky once said about American influence in South American: “They were to have elections, but no politics“.

If you would like an arguably somewhat more empirical take, there is always the Democracy Index, which gives the US a score of 7.96 out of 10, ranking it 25th in the world (between Estonia and Cape Verde), which they classify as a “flawed democracy”.

Regarding Jefferson and his newspaper, you have to keep in mind that the whole concept of the news media as trying to be nonpartisan is a 20th century invention.

It’s also (a) pretty much uniquely American, and (b) a lie. The notion that the news media is neutral is just another element of the propaganda system that seeks to render any idea outwith the very narrow confines of acceptable mainstream opinion literally unthinkable.

Yeah, that’s true. I’m afraid it’s going to end up like China or Turkey – a sort of committee or strongman-led dictatorship that tries to not flex its muscles except when it “needs” to. Which works for those countries but doesn’t work for a superpower that has a military that has metastasized through the entire economy.

I think that things like gerrymandering and more direct forms of voter suppression are actually a problem within democratic government – they are the result of a majority trying to reduce or elimate the powers of a minority, an example of “tyranny of the majority”. Democratically elected governments can still be pretty authoritarian.

The lack of diversity in US politics is I think more of a cultural problem than a lack of democracy. If really large numbers of people wanted to vote for other parties than the Democrats and Republicans, then we would have more than 2 major parties. The first past the post system contributes to this, but other countries with FPTP have more than 2 major parties, so I think the issue is that most people in the US just aren’t interested in other parties. Also, US politics is to the right of most other countries because most US voters are relatively right wing compared to those in other countries. It has more to do with the national culture than the level of democracy.

I guess my point is that there are lots of problems in the US, but they aren’t really connected to democracy or lack thereof. If the majority of voters are moderately to far-right, the countries’ government is going to be similar.

The notion that the news media is neutral is just another element of the propaganda system that seeks to render any idea outwith the very narrow confines of acceptable mainstream opinion literally unthinkable.

We see that every election cycle. The candidates are presented in a silly horse-race narrative, but why? Because that most effectively keeps outside questions from intruding.

I haven’t been watching the democratic debates, but what I hear is depressing. There’s no serious talk about the fact that Israel just announced a one state decision, or global warming, or military spending. These clowns are able to pretend to be serious about the issues, but what they really mean is that they’re arguing whose got nicer shoes.

When one party gains a permanent lock on a political system, it turns into a central committee like the Chinese or Soviets had. It appears to me that the republicans have realized that demographics are against them and they’re either going to be out of power permanently, or it’s time to grab the whole thing and not let go.

Also, US politics is to the right of most other countries because most US voters are relatively right wing compared to those in other countries.

Are they really though? If you actually poll them on many specific issues (healthcare, gun control, climate change, labour rights, and so on) the US electorate fairly reliably turns out to be quite a bit further “left”* than the bulk of the Democratic Party.

(* Scare quotes because a number of those issues aren’t really left wing in any conventional sense, they’ve just become associated with the left.)

Dunc@#23:Are they really though? If you actually poll them on many specific issues (healthcare, gun control, climate change, labour rights, and so on) the US electorate fairly reliably turns out to be quite a bit further “left”* than the bulk of the Democratic Party.

The big problem with American voters is that the biggest vote bloc is “can’t be arsed to vote.” So there are all these people that can answer all kinds of random things to polls, but it’s impossible to tell if they’d actually vote at all, let alone in a certain way.

The democrats keep trying to appeal to the mythic “undecided voter” or “republican that can be turned from the dark side” while ignoring the largest voting bloc in the country, which is, also, the “I hate democrats” but at least they also hate republicans.

[I am one of those voters who hates both parties with a passion, but I vote. Unfortunately, I vote to damage whoever I hate the most, which is generally republicans, though damn it Joe Biden is awfully hateable.]

The US, from well before there was a union, was a matter of two major forces: one wave of religious fanatics and do-gooders willing to murder to protect their vision of God’s will. They were so obnoxious and disagreeable that they were rejected by the Dutch. The second wave was one of scofflaws, criminals, and people with beliefs and behaviors incompatible with civilized society. Both groups were corrupt. Disruptive and potentially violent.

Ironically both groups clung to ‘the rule of law’ and democracy simply because they could use it to protect themselves from outsiders, while maintaining local majorities through constant redefinition of who is counted (ie: The Irish became ‘white’.) and allowed to vote, while also working the referees from the inside.

It may be helpful to remember that corruption is not an absolute. It is a scalar and the way to deal with it is to manage it. Of course, doing that is mighty hard when nobody is allowed to say that some low levels of corruption may be tolerable, or at least not worth expending the time and effort to completely eradicate. It is clear that Trump has crossed the line. It is only obscured by the whataboutism, bothsides, and lie that all corruption is equally bad and equally important.

I don’t see the two parties as being anything close to the same. The names may change and, sometimes switch sides, but we are still fighting the classic battles over how much bad can be tolerated to gain some measure of good and should the country be run by popular support for issues, individual rights, or perhaps it should be one-dollar-one-vote. Pure democracy, anarchic freedom, or control as property right.

It may be time to think about what follows this attempt at a ‘more perfect union’. IMHO the first question is how we manage the technology created by Bearnaise, Goebbels, and McLuhan. Advertising works. It changes how we think of our world, people, groups, and ourselves. It can free, or enslave, the mind. It isn’t always entirely clear in the short run which way it is going. I take it as right that, as one blogger puts it, we can’t function as a nation when a third of us have subcontracted our mental hygiene out to FOX news.